In "Decision Time," Editor Brian Lovett will share a scenario from his 20-plus years hunting turkeys. Each hinges on a critical decision. Post what choice you would have made, and then see how things actually turned out.

Chain of Fools

It was my first hunting trip to Texas, and I was an awestruck rookie.

Every morning, Rio after Rio hammered from the river bottom that coursed through the property. And each evening, hundreds of coyotes rang songs from the hills. Oh, and I'd stepped right over a coiled rattlesnake.

To add to my confusion, my host was filming the hunt, so I could only shoot a turkey if everything was perfect. No matter. It was Texas, right? Everything would come together.

And it did, sort of, one hot afternoon. We walked to a small oak grove, set up our equipment and then floated some yelps through the warm air. A muffled gobble echoed back. Cool.

But before we could react, the turkey sprinted past our setup and started strutting directly behind us. There was no way I could turn around and shoot and definitely no way to film anything. We waited, still as stones, hoping the bird would see our decoys and drift in front of us.

I didn't even dare look, so I kept abreast of the situation by whispering to the guide. He, in turn, whispered to my host, who was on the far left, hiding by his video camera and watching the turkey. Most of the conversations sounded like this.

"Psst! Blah, blah, blah turkey blah, blah, blah."

"What?"

"Blah, blah, unintelligible, turkey, blah, blah, blah."

Great.

Eventually, though, the gobbler drifted to the left and then slowly eased toward our setup, well within range but behind thick mesquite. I heard my host whisper something to the guide, who then relayed the instructions to me.

"Whisper, whisper, blah, blah, unintelligible gibberish, shoot."

Had he just told me to shoot? Maybe the bird was about to bolt, or perhaps my host had good video footage. However, the gobbler was still behind the mesquite, and I thought it didn't present a decent target. Still, I felt pressured that my host/videographer apparently wanted me to fire. Perhaps he thought I actually had a shot or saw something that I didn't. Either way, the gobbler wouldn't hang around forever.

1: If it's not a shot I'd take under normal circumstances...I wouldn't shoot

2: Knowing the kind of trouble you're going thru to video.......If I wasn't sure he was on the bird...I wouldn't shoot.........figuring that at some point someone is going to say in no uncertain terms...shoot!!

watch...I'll do the exact opposite this year...lol.....I'll be in Texas in 2 weeks and a day

i had a similar situation with one of my uncles who was calling, he could see the bird clear as day but i was the shooter, i could barely see parts of the bird in the thick vegetation, i kept hearing him say shoot, i kept saying i can't see his head, finally he said audibly, SHOOT, so i did, and i missed, he later sat down and looked through what i was looking at and said to me, i now understand why you didn't want to shoot, wow.